[lit-ideas] The Spartan Code
- From: jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2008 11:53:46 -0500
????? GEARY. Hello.
????? OPERATOR (Greek). Yes?
????? GEARY. Hi. I'm in Memphis, You Ess Ay. I would like to make a
?????????? phone call to Sparta.
????? OPERATOR (Greek). Do you know the Code?
Sparta in Greece's heartland.
Sparta on the horizon.
Thanks to L. K. Helm for his nice long posting, titled something about a
'hypothetical JL' -- that's me, and all I need to know (and less, :-), since I
always want to know _more_) about the hoplites.
>In the West a father, at least fathers of old, would teach their sons how to
be men.
---
Yep. In this book by Sargent I have, though -- a very bad book, being a "Beacon
Press, Boston" translation of a French original, it was, I think (it could have
been elsewhere) that the link
????????????? father
????????????????????????? son
was _not_ considered viable by the Greeks or specifically the Spartans. I think
there is a problem here (with the Greeks). Indeed, as L. K. Helm,
>In the West,
-- at first I thought he meant in the _Wild_ West, but I see he means,
Occidens, as in Spengler's hateful book, "The Waning of the West" -- should be
"The Waning of the _Sun_ on the West".
Anyway,
>in the West,
I don't think it applied to the Greeks.
I am surprised at the lack of respect, but then he (Aristophanes) shows it
everywhere, that Aristophanes has for fathers, and fatherhood, or a father, in
general.
A father, in his _Clouds_ is depicted as a rather miserable creature.
I think this was the generalised Western attitude.
I think I read it in Quintilian, too (going from the green Greek Loeb to the
"Roman" hybrid love), that he said that
"A parent [meaning fathers?] are the most miserable of people when adjudicating
a school for his son"
I don't want to agree. On the other hand, there's this quote in the Oxford
Dict. of Quotations, to the effect that
?? "Parents are the least appropriate people to be allowed to have children."
-- sounds funnier in Turkish.
In any case, in Sparta it was pretty mixed, and J. L. Borges (in his short
story, "Brodie's Report") possibly has it right that the idea of fatherhood is
very _late_, and not necessary (unlike motherhood). Primitive peoples (but cf.
Gurkhas) cannot tell a man from another -- and it's very difficult who was the
'spermer' in the _mother_'s sexual organts NINE MONTHS BEFORE.
Nine months sounds like an eternity to me, and I think that's the problem with
fatherhood.
---- So, I don't think there was this personalized thing about father/son who
has been a topic of MASCULINITY studies recently. For example this book by this
best-selling author, American, on "How to raise your own son, and not make him
a sissy", I forget the real title.
I agree with Helm that there was a lot of responsibility for the tutor, and
this makes me think that Achilleus, for example, must have been the TUTOR of
Patrokles and not vice versa, as it is sometimes assumed -- by Plato?
I would also mention HERAKLES who was desperate when he lost HYLAS on this
island.
But Achilleus is a better illustration in that he _knew_ that he had committed
_hubris_ not for anything having to do with 'love' (so I don't see 'homosexual'
here, where 'same-gender' would be a better term), but with this pact that he
had committed with Patroklos's father that he sould see to Patroklos's safe and
sound return to wherever it was that he was from.
Or consider ADONIS. I was doing some research on this recently and found in
WIKI this article on R. Segal (of Leicester) who wrote this book on rethinking
myths. The Adonia was traditionally considered as a sissified festival, usually
held by women (who are _not_ sissified, necessarily). Segal shows however, that
Adonis represents
??????? EVERYTHING THAT A MALDE SHOULD ***NOT**** BE
-- he didn't have a job. He was bad at hunting (actually killed by a stupid
boar). He wasn't consistent with his affairs, and on top of it, he wanted to
make love to APHRODITE who was already 'engaged' (sexually) with Ares. So, as
the story goes, it was ARES who _killed_ Adonis, which perhaps it was the right
thing to do provided there was little future for Adonis anyway.
Sargent focuses a lot on 'initiation' rituals -- which the Spartans and
generally Greeks did very simple. Unlike other cultures, it was just the
cutting of a few locks (In Mesopotamia the rite of initiation involved the
cutting of testicles, until Queen Sheba noted that the process was
irreversible).
Anyhow, Adonis could be interpreted as having been 'initiated'; but I doubt it.
While BION ("Lament for Adonis", Loeb Bucolic) does mention that his locks were
shorn, I don't think he ever became an adult, functioning in the warrior role
of society. The case is different with SPARTAN
???????? HUACINTHOS
for -- he -- as Pausanias, the Baedeker of Greece notes, is represented in the
Southern Spartan area as a moustachioed or generally bearded man. So the point
is that he _got_ initiated, and became a functioning adult.
It's good that Helm focuses on the 'right'/'wrong' performance of a _tutor_. I
don't think I would like to be _one_ if the job was so serious! I mean, what if
you are given the control of a _sissy_ who _won't_ learn? Why should that be
_my_ fault? I tend to agree with whoever it was that said that tutorials were
first conducted by _slaves_.
Seeing that Spartans had so many of them, I wouldn't wonder, but I think what
is meant is the 'paidagogos', the slave who would actually _lead_ the tutee to
wherever it was that he took him ('the playing fields').
The vocabulary is confusing and I'm starting to hate the word 'erastes'. If
it's a social and moral responsibility, it has hardly to do with 'love' which
should be understood as gratuitous selfless concern or care for the other. Less
than 'duty'. And surely not supererogatory (that's a word R. Paul may like -- I
never understood the ethics or conversational implicatures of supererogation).
I'm also confused as to TIMING. Herakles, for example, seems to have had at
least like 50 tutees. Is that chronologically PLAUSIBLE? I would accept _one_
tutee_ for a lifetime. And in this I follow Grice who followed Strawson. I
don't believe in multitutorials.
Tutee should be like 'friend', and in my logic, you only need one good friend.
(Cicero discusses this and agrees, "many friends does not necessarily mean
anything better than just one good, soulmate, friend -- cfr. Arist. Eth. Nich.).
If the tutor was a special slave-related caste, I can see that a good tutor
(like Chiron, or Herakles) would have lines of fathers wanting to loose any
responsibility with the 'thing' (the pais) and leave it to the tutor.
What's also irritating is:
1) The tutor had to give some gift (usually a cock -- no irony intended) to the
tutee.
??? I would expect the reciprocal would be nicer. Even if it's an 'apple'.
2) The tutee had an attitude. I'm surprised at how silly some Greek adults
behave towards non-consenting adults. I suppose the problem is that the relaxed
literature we have from Athens, rather than Sparta (who _did_ things rather
than _wrote_ about them), but I'm not surprised that Plato wanted to write the
Republic to set some matters right,
And he did.
Cheers,
J. L. Speranza
??? "Somewhere Over The Rainbow"
????????? -- bluebirds fly.
??????????????????????? (and snakes creep).
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